May 2012
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The Key to Success in Filmmaking
While this article in Forbes on Why Immigrants Make Better Entrepreneurs is a bit of pulp, it’s a topic that generates a lot of casual speculation on why some people get a “big break” and others don’t. The article describes an immigrant, Christian Gheorghe, that was willing to take any job - hauling plywood, driving limos - while simultaneously improving on his craft and...
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“Godard got it exactly backwards. Cinema is not truth 24 times a second, it is...”
– ~ James Cameron in 2008
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Editing, Producing, and Directing:
In response to my post Editing With Intention, Rob at York University wrote:
I just returned from a masterclass with Joe Walker editor of SteveMcQueen’s Hunger + Shame. His points matched closely with what you say. He explained how McQueen shoots very little (and in fact hates the word) coverage forcing him as an editor to hold on shots. Ultimately this is good because it allows you to...
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“Identify your own obsessions, then figure out how to make them interesting to...”
– ~ ScreenwritingTips
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“Dear Hitch,
In spite of your wide and generous disregard of my communications...”
– ~ Raymond Chandler to Alfred Hitchcock, Dec. 6, 1950. Published on Letters of Note, brought to my attention by caioamnesiac.
April 2012
20 posts
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“It’s not like I have an aversion to my own films, but at a certain point the...”
– Harmony Korine
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Watch
What all of these examples show—other than how the unique styles of experimental cinema have become embedded in certain filmmakers’ techniques—is how vital it is to challenge the norms or ideas behind “traditional” moviemaking. If it weren’t for the risks of a select group of filmmakers, most directors would still be thumbing through Hollywood’s Rolodex of remake-ready titles.
Friend and...
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“There is no honest discussion that can be had about this Hobbit footage without...”
– ~ Jim Vejvoda after watching 10 minutes of The Hobbit presented at its native 48 fps (rather than the normal 24 fps)
I like making films more than watching them. Who’s with me?
~ü
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The Newest New Wave →
Peter Webber opines on the discrepancy between talent and available technology in his latest post:
Film maker Aaron Stewart-Ahn who tweets as @somebadideas (and is a must-follow) touched on this when he tweeted (and I paraphrase) that the average 24-year-old has better tech than Jean Luc Godard and his cameraman Raoul Coutard, but that we don’t see films as brave, funny, entertaining, ambitious...
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Movie Studios Are Forcing Hollywood to Abandon... →
This is the most complete analysis of the issue of going 100% digital from Production to Distribution to Exhibition. Christopher Nolan sums up my issue as a filmmaker:
“The danger comes from filmmakers not asserting their right to choose that format,” Nolan says. “If they stop exercising that choice, it will go away. I tell people, ‘Look, digital isn’t going...
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Life is but an Oneiric
Life is but a dream; it’s what you make it
Always try to give; don’t ever take it
~ The Temptations
I like living, breathing, better than working… My art [is] that of living: each second, each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere, which is neither visual nor cerebral, it’s sort of constant euphoria.
~ Marcel Duchamp
Row, row, row your boat; Gently down the...
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“I am who I am and I don’t know why. It’s a disappointment to me sometimes when I...”
– John Cassavetes
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What's Wrong With Hollywood? Nothing!
A week ago I posted a popular infographic on the type of the stories that dominated Hollywood last year. The author of the graphic was tying the issue of decreasing attendance to the lack of original content in Hollywood. Many readers of Beyond the Frame shouted “So true!! That’s the problem!! No original stories!!”
Time for a change? Not so fast. Here are the...
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What is Your Guiding Principle?
Yesterday, I posted an innocuous video of Andrei Tarkovsky at a Q&A in Italy. While his diatribe on “poor miserable producers” seems like the nugget here, I was especially struck by his assertion of truth and beauty as his driving force. This is not the first time Tarkovksy asserted this. I find it remarkable because of the consistency of his message. He serves a higher power....
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geterklyed asked: Which directors have had the greatest influence on you and your style? Bear in mind, most influential does not necessarily mean who you think are the greatest, as my list of greatest and my list of most influential differ greatly. Just those that have had the greatest impact on you and your style.
mordantfactotum asked: Hello, I've been passionate about film for the past few years and I have come to the conclusion that I would really love to be a director. However, I am not sure how realistic my dream is considering the economic status I am in from school and if I should continue my education in film. Is pursuing a dream in the film industry worth it?
March 2012
19 posts
brehaley asked: how many cameras are on a set? and what id a good first camera to get to make short films or documentaries?
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“KR: Also, there’s something great about having privacy when you’re making a...”
– BOMB Magazine: Kelly Reichardt by Gus Van Sant (via adnanchowdhury)
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The Relationship Between the Producer and a...
The relationship I had with Harvey was definitely more like that father-son relationship that you read about in literature and whatnot. I love him to death, but, yeah, I definitely had some issues along the way. … I was an idealist. I was a young man, and I believed kind of everything I was told. And back in those days, we were told, like, ‘This is indie war, man! We’re taking...
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thetalesofpoe asked: All you made from your short was $72.00 distributing it online? (nice short btw)
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Will Digital Liberate Us From 35mm Tyranny?
The rhetoric of revolution is almost always an exaggeration of what is actually happening on the ground. For those of us who make narrative movies, the reality is that independent cinema is still a costly and risky endeavor. The bankruptcy of Kodak really has little to do with the day-to-day problems of a filmmaker. Firelotusfilm gives us a little perspective on filmmaking’s so-called...
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“I had worked with actors before, and I had myself been an actor, you know, on...”
– Terrence Malick on being on-camera (via erotictransference)
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It’s getting harder and harder to tell the stories you want to tell in film. Television is becoming a viable medium for movie stars to come and do the work they want. The independent film world is pretty much gone.
~ Nick Nolte
Perhaps someday audiences will watch movies because of the story being told and not the celebrity attached to it.
~ü
(Thanks to checkthegate for the quote from The...
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February 2012
24 posts
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The Camera Simply Watches →
Nelson Carvajal, of Free Cinema Now, muses on what it is to be a director:
The purpose of a director is to have a passionate vision for something. No matter what camera instrument you have at your disposal—what the hell are you trying to show me? Or provoke in me? Why should I watch your images?
[…]
It’s going to be your fervor and sense of purpose that points the camera...